Doctors in Australia, in a study conducted by the University of Sydney, revealed some serious disparities in cancer research.  The study indicates few clinical trials target four of the most serious types of cancer, according to a report in the Sydney Morning Herald.

Of 386 recent interventional cancer trials recruiting patients in Australia, only 24 focused on lung cancer, despite it being one of the deadliest variants, the study found.

Medical oncologist Rachel Dear and her co-authors also found few trials being designed for the study of colorectal, prostate and pancreatic cancers, three other lethal forms of the Breast cancer accounted for 62 of the trials.

Dear used data from the Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry to explore the number and types of cancer clinical trial activity.

"We found that the number of trials for each cancer type did not always match the burden of disease caused by that cancer, thereby identifying gaps in cancer research," Dear said.

Her research is published in the Medical Journal of Australia.